To reduce wind flow resistance and drag on a trailer, truck, semitrailer, or other vehicle, side skirts which extend downwardly from a bottom of the trailer and/or chassis toward the roadway to partially enclose the floor assembly and undercarriage of the trailer, fairings and other such structures have been used. Many structures associated with the rear of the trailer are provided in order to also reduce the aerodynamic drag on the trailer.
A typical storage container of a trailer terminates with a large, rectangular rear surface. This shape causes an area of reduced pressure to be created behind the trailer storage container as it moves over the highway, thus generating a slowing force that must be overcome with additional engine power and thus additional fuel. In other words, turbulent air flow passing behind the vehicle imparts a drag force to the vehicle. Rear trailer fairings are designed to streamline the rear end of the trailer in order to control the flow of air at the rear of the vehicle. Such reduction on the drag of the ground vehicle may operate to conserve fossil fuels as well as other sources of vehicle drive power for hybrid vehicles, battery-operated vehicles, and alternative fuel-based vehicles, for example. However, many such fairings which extend from the rear end of the trailer also may cover the rear doors of the trailer which must be opened and closed by a user to load and unload the cargo within the storage area of the trailer in such a way that users may be required to dismount and mount, or otherwise manually operate, the fairing(s) each time a loading or unloading operation is to be performed.